Tuesday, 16 October 2012

Thank you for giving an opportunity to speak at such honorable meeting.

I
would like to bring to your attention this very important issue of women’s participation
in the political life in my country from the point of view of civil society
activist and a member of the Association of Women of Abkhazia.

Women
in Abkhazia play very active role in the civil society, though they are not widely
presented in governmental structures. The traditional roles of women as mothers
and housewives, as well as supporters rather than leaders put obstacles to
women’s participation in the political life. Their access to mainstream
politics, information and resources is rather restricted, partly due to their
socio-economic burdens and responsibilities for supporting their families and
communities, but also due to assumptions about their inefficiency in politics,
the personality -based and privileged nature of the political environment.

As
it often occurs in other conflict contexts, Abkhazian women faced a variety of
insecurities during the violent Abkhaz-Georgian warin 1992-93 and were primary actors in
responding to the conflict, providing family income during the war and
especially after when Abkhazia suffered nasty economical sanctions imposed by the entire world on behalf of Georgia, women
actively tried to build social life and
evenset up small enterprises. Nobody then
in the government of Tbilisi
even took to mind the protection of civilian population and the rights of women
and children.

Women also fought as combatants,
worked in military hospitals as nurses and doctors, were correspondents on the
front and helped refugees to survive. definitely, there were women among those
awarded honors and medals. Despite their important roles during and after the
war, women find themselves not represented in leadership and decision-making
roles in the current political sphere.

Abkhazia has declared itself to be a
‘sovereign, democratic state, which recognizes and guarantees the rights and
freedoms enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and on Civil and
Political Rights and other universally recognized international legal acts’.

Being partially recognized Abkhazia
is unable to establish foreign relations as a state and the laws passed by the Abkhaz authorities are yet
not recognized by international law and Abkhazia cannot become a party to
international agreements. Also Abkhazia received relatively little development
or post-conflict rehabilitation assistance, though, after Russia
recognized Abkhazia’s independence, it provided considerable economic and
financial support. Non-recognition of Abkhazia as an independent state should
not be an obstruction in promoting gender equality and the development of a
rightful, inclusive, tolerant society, and certainly should not be used to
limit opportunities for any section of the population.

Local NGOs effectively lobbied for a law ‘On
ensuring equal rights and opportunities for men and women in the Republic of Abkhazia’, which came into force in
2009. It is still too early to anticipate full implementation of such a law,
especially the one which requires a
fundamental change in attitudes, behaviors and political culture. Gender
equality within Abkhazia’s political framework needs to be addressed through
the population and its expectations of women’s roles in public life. NGOs also
contributed to the preparation and lobbying for the Law on Access to
Information, adopted in 2008, and have been particularly active in lobbying for
transparent, free and fair elections and their monitoring, participating in the
public organization “League for Honest Elections” with the aim of promoting a
more comprising political culture.

Abkhaz women founded civil society
organizations to tackle a variety of needs and problems, including the
provision of humanitarian assistance, creating livelihoods and advocating for
democratic and political reforms.Association of
Women of Abkhazia was established by a group of Abkhaz women in Sukhum in March
1999 with a mission to protect the rights of women and strengthen women’s
social and political position within society as well asto improve women’s status and eventually
increase the access and representation of women in leadership positions in the
broader political field. To this purpose, AWA carries out research programs,
raise public awareness and trainings.

However, so far the development of
appearance for strong, educated and independent women has occurred in parallel
to a decreasing female presence in the Abkhaz decision-making structures.
Furthermore, their prevalence in this field has led to compartmentalizing women
in this sector, creating hypothesis that “the place” for women’s public voice
is in civil society rather than in political leadership.

Women are occupying some prominent
positions and are present across the judiciary and parliament. However, Abkhaz experts
noted that they are few and that women in power do not always represent women’s
interests.

In the early 1990s the Soviet
tradition continued and women were still able to enter parliament, but over
time this has decreased. Women themselves are not particularly influential or
active in political parties and do not look for high level positions. There is
just one woman among the current parliamentarians. She yas been elected as deputy speaker. This is a downturn
from the parliament of 1996–2002 when 5 and 3 in 2007 out of 35 deputies
were women. In the Sukhum town Assembly, 6 out of 25 members were female but
nowadays no female has been elected. No
women have ever been nominated for president in the three presidential elections,
although in 2004 and 2011 women stood as candidates for vice-president.

Within government, one of the
deputies of a prime - minister is a woman, two out of twelve ministries are
headed by women (Labor & Social Development and Justice). Just one woman
heading up one of the six state committees, and only two out of nine
departments under the Cabinet of Ministers are headed by women (Department for
Statistics and the Department for Building & Architecture). Of eight state
funds, two are headed by women (fund for the development of Abkhaz language,
and the medical insurance fund). The official information agency, Apsnypress,
is also headed by a woman. It is
important to bear in mind that statistics do not significantly reflect the
realities and complications of women’s political participation. Women do not
naturally represent women’s interests and even where women were present, they
were usually not in leadership positions and they do not have such a
significant influence.

Sorry to say, Abkhazia is a bit far
from reaching a lot of women in public structures and, moreover, the sense of
their political participation cannot be measured by statistics. There are
significant factors which block women’s number in public office, as traditional
roles, stereotypes and women’s status attributing the lack of women
decision-makers and political leaders to stereotypes about women’s responsibility
as mothers and housewives. The society is accustomed to giving decision-making
responsibilities to men and there is a slight tendency for women to be taken
less seriously as actors in public life.

The
partially recognized status of Abkhazia means it is problematic for the
international community to engage officially on issues relating to women’s
political participation in governance of the country. However, this should not discourage
the international community from supporting the aim of gender equality in
Abkhazia.